


How To Properly Treat An Acid Burn (And Also Cause Heart Palpitations)

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Chemicals, F/M, Naked Male Clothed Female
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 15:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4672013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Sherlock is trying to convince Molly to move into Baker Street for her own safety Molly accidentally spills acid on him, causing him to need to disrobe in front of her. She wasn’t expecting the eyeful she got, however, when Sherlock decides that flushing the burn means he’s going to use the decontamination shower at the lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Properly Treat An Acid Burn (And Also Cause Heart Palpitations)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thescienceofsherlolly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescienceofsherlolly/gifts).



> So yesterday **thescienceofsherlolly** mentioned that there was a prompt from **otpprompts** that they'd like to see written as a Sherlolly fic ( _Imagine your OTP as lab partners. Person A accidentally spills some acid on their shirt so they have to take it off and use the lab shower. Person B admires from afar, trying not to get too excited. Bonus: Person A has a button on the back of their shirt and needs Person B’s help to take it off_ ) and I offered to write it. I tweaked it slightly (and sadly did not use the bonus) but I hope you all enjoy it anyway.

Molly walked into the path lab and stopped. _He_ was already there. Why was he always in her lab when he had a perfectly good lab of his own to go to? She bit back a sigh and took her samples to an unoccupied section of the worktop. At least his taste in music wasn’t so bad. There was soothing violin playing today, which she had to admit calmed her rather frazzled nerves. Another night tossing and turning, another night wondering if Jim was going to come after her now that he was back.

“Sleepless night?” he asked quietly.

She glanced over at him but it appeared he hadn’t even looked up. He probably had studied her while she was lost in her own thoughts. “Yes,” she said, beginning to sort her samples.

“You should come to Baker Street,” he said.

This time she didn’t hold back the sigh. “I don’t want to give up my home, Sherlock, I’ve told you that. You said your brother’s tightened security. That’s got to be good enough.”

“If it was good enough you’d get more sleep. You have dark circles under your eyes and you’re shaky. You’re going to cause an accident if you’re not careful.”

She glared at him but he didn’t seem to notice. “Like you haven’t come into the labs after pulling an all-nighter,” she said in a huff. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you do it, with your hands trembling and your having trouble staying awake. You can’t talk to me like you haven’t ever done it yourself.”

“But I’m better at controlling the symptoms of my tiredness,” he said. “I’ve trained myself to run on three to four hours of sleep. You need at least six, if not a full eight.”

“Well, I’m still not moving into Baker Street,” she said, turning back to her own slides and samples.

He was quiet for a moment. “Molly…”

“Sherlock, enough is enough!” she said, banging her first on the worktop. She knocked over a cylinder and its contents went splashing onto Sherlock’s shirt and trousers. His eyes widened and he pushed away from the worktop, frantically beginning to remove clothing. “What was that?”

“Hydrofluoric acid,” he said, working on quickly getting his suit jacket off. Her eyes went wide as she saw the large wet spots on his shirt and trousers and she quickly dashed to the area where they kept the solutions to treat chemical burns, rummaging around for the bicarbonate of soda. She found it and the grabbed a dish and began to make a paste.

“How much of your skin was affected?” she asked, glancing over as she saw him unbuttoning his shirt.

“There’s a large patch on my abdomen and another large patch on my thigh,” he said, wincing. She felt absolutely horrible and so she quickly got water to make the paste for him. She mixed them together and then brought the dish over as he got his shirt off and began to work on his trousers. When he’d gotten them unbuttoned and unzipped he lowered them down until the area that had been covered with the acid was exposed.

“Take them off, Sherlock,” she said with a frown. “You don’t want it rubbing from the clothes to any other parts of your legs.” He shook his head and then took off his shoes before stepping out of his trousers and kicking them to the side. Molly looked at the reddened area and began applying the paste she’d made to both his abdomen and his thigh. “I am so sorry, Sherlock. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “It seems to me that all I do these days is anger you. I just want to make sure you’re safe, that no harm comes to you. I care for you more than you realize.”

“I know. I just don’t want to give up my home,” she said, straightening up. It was only then that she realized Sherlock was standing in front of her in nothing more than his pants and his socks, and she felt herself begin to warm at the cheeks. He actually looked quite fit. Very attractive. Much more muscular than she’d fantasized about. Not that she’d been doing that much more often since she’d ended her engagement to Tom. Oh, who was she kidding? She’d thought quite frequently about having her wicked way with Sherlock even while she was still engaged, much to her consternation. It was part of the reason she’d ended the engagement. And now that she was so tantalizingly close to a mostly naked Sherlock she was dry mouthed and dumbfounded. It was not one of her best moments.

Sherlock looked at her strangely. “Molly?”

“I…um…” She forced herself to take a deep breath, to move away. “I should clean up the spill.”

“All right. I should let this bicarbonate of soda solution sit for a moment and then flush it with water,” he said. “Even though acid burns don’t always show, that is protocol, correct?” She couldn’t trust herself to speak so she simply nodded. “Where are the lab showers?”

“We have…um…decontamination showers over there,” she said, pointing to a door to the left. “In case…things happen.” How had it gotten so hard to talk? 

“Is there a place to put these?” he asked, gesturing to his pants.

She felt herself redden slightly and cursed herself for it. “Not that I can think of. Normally if you’re in there you’re fully clothed.”

He sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to strip down and put them somewhere before I go in, then.” He sat on the stool for a moment, taking his socks off, and then made his way to the showers before reaching for the waistband of his pants, pulling them off his hips. If it was at all possible she must be as red as a tomato now. Oh, he had a _magnificent_ arse, she thought to herself. He set his pants on the shelves near the shower door and then turned to her, giving her a mostly full frontal view. “Make sure I’m undisturbed.”

“I…um…well…” she said quietly, unable to tear her gaze away. “All right.”

He opened the door to the shower are and stepped inside and she had to sit down on the stool for a moment, careful not to be near the hydrofluoric acid. She’d just seen Sherlock Holmes stark naked in her lab. _Stark naked._ She was still processing it when the door opened again. “Molly?” he said, sticking his head out.

“Yes?” she asked, snapping her head up. She caught a glimpse of his upper torso, glistening wet, and she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.

“I may have need of a towel and a set of hospital scrubs,” he said. 

“Right,” she said.

He paused. "And Molly?"

"Yes?" she asked

“If you move into Baker Street for the duration of the crisis, I can assure you, you’ll get used to this sight.” With that he shut the door again and she stared, wide eyed and jaw hanging open. She wasn’t sure exactly what he had meant by that last comment but she was sure of one thing: moving into Baker Street was _definitely_ looking more and more tempting by the minute.


End file.
